Sazani Associates works in partnership with civil society, and local and regional government to promote sustainable livelihoods and challenge global poverty and its consequences. We do this through research into social and environmental justice and developing innovative learning approaches that involve shared experiences with the Global South. Sazani Associates has registered offices in Wales (UK), Zanzibar (Tanzania) and Belize.
Download Zanzibar – Poverty in Paradise (.pdf)
We are funded by UKAID through the Department for International Development and by the EU through Europe Aid to support the school and adult and community learning sectors in the development of key competencies in global social and environmental justice to support global learning delivery (also known as ESDGC).
Sazani Associates coordinates the Education for Rural Livelihoods and Food Sovereignty (ERLAFS) network of primary and secondary schools in Wales with curriculum links with schools in Zanzibar.
Sazani Associates offers training in Learning for Sustainability and Global Social Justice.
Recent News & Projects
Welsh education team wins praise from Prince Charles – in Zanzibar
A Carmarthen based award-winning Welsh education team has won praise from Prince Charles during his visit to Zanzibar.
Sazani Associates is busy setting up its latest community development programme on the island, backed by £500,000 of Comic Relief funding.
And Sazani Director Mark Proctor met with the Prince during a reception at the House of Wonders in Zanzibar Town. Mark is in Zanzibar now, working with local people on sustainability projects aimed at ending poverty. The island is part of Tanzania, one of the ten poorest nations in the world.
“The Prince was very interested to hear about a Carmarthen based not-for-profit company that has built important links between 17 schools in south Wales and Zanzibar,” said Mark, who has been a community development worker for more than 20 years.
Mark explained that Sazani has set up education and learning projects with local partners and the Government of Zanzibar to create sustainable businesses around food for the last seven years.
“Now, with new funding from Comic Relief and DFiD, we are building on this unique relationship to create long term projects which will give some of the poorest people in the world a sustainable future,” said Mark, who joined British Honorary High Commissioner to Zanzibar, Welshman Carl Salisbury at the reception on Tuesday 8 November 2011 hosted by the Government of Zanzibar.
Sazani’s Zanzibar Education and Environment Training (ZEET) project aims to encourage entrepreneurism in the region. It will also be working to create new food and farming enterprises as well as establishing self sustaining training programmes for the growing tourism sector.
“Beautiful places like Zanzibar are tourist destinations for the wealthy but the reality is that local people are amongst the poorest, living alongside some of the richest.
“With the increase in all inclusive holiday resorts run by multi-nationals all the profits go out of the country – in many cases destroying the locally run tourism enterprises.
“Our work focuses on educating and training local people to take advantage of the opportunities these new complexes provide by creating local supply of sustainable produce and services,”he said.
Award-winning Welsh business has sights set on creating new sustainable enterprises in Caribbean
A Welsh business which is already helping some of the poorest people in the world set up and run their own successful sustainable enterprises could be expanding in the Caribbean.
Award-winning Sazani Associates, a not-for-profit company and recent winner of a prestigious European Award, has just established new links with Antigua and Barbuda, Honduras and Belize.
Sazani director Mark Proctor met with the High Commissioner for Belize, Kamela Palmer, and ambassadors from Honduras, Antigua and Barbuda in Cardiff at a meeting organised by the Welsh Government’s international affairs department.
“This was a tremendous opportunity to explore expanding our work in the Caribbean and to look at ways of forging closer links between these three small countries and Wales”, said Mr Proctor.
Sazani, based in Carmarthen, is already running projects in Belize helping local people to set up and run their food processing and supply companies. It is also involved in similar work in Zanzibar.
“The region – with its trade links to an increasingly vibrant South American economy, highly ethnically-diverse population, and spectacular range of opportunities in environmental management –, has both much to learn from Wales and much to teach us.
“These beautiful places are tourist destinations for the wealthy but the reality is that local people are amongst the poorest in the world, living alongside some of the richest.
“With the increase in all-inclusive holiday resorts run by multi-nationals, all the profits go out of the country – in many cases destroying the locally run tourism enterprises.
“Our work focuses on educating and training local people to take advantage of the opportunities these new complexes provide by creating local supply of sustainable produce and services”,he said.
The company is now in direct communication with the three embassies in London, with the aim of building stronger links and new opportunities in each of the countries.
One of Sazani Associates’ recent projects – linking schools and providing teacher training in Zanzibar and Wales –, has just been awarded a World Aware Education Award laureate by the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe. The group has also been recognised by UNESCO for its work across a network of countries.
For more information on the prize, go to
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/nscentre/NS_Prize_en.asp
For more information on the Council of Europe, go to
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/nscentre/About_NSC/Presentation_en.asp
For more information on ERLAFS:
Please look at our Past Projects
Wales Education Project is World Class
Sazani Associates has scooped a prestigious European Award.
Carmarthen based Sazani Associates’ “Education for Rural Livelihoods and Food Sovereignty” (ERLAFS) project has been chosen as one of the three World Aware Education Awards laureates by the North South Centre (NSC) of the Council of Europe (CoE).
The 3 year project has been funded by the EU and DFID (UKAID).
An international jury weighed numerous applications from Afghanistan, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, Timor, Uganda, United-Kingdom, USA, and large international organisations before deciding.
Director and founder of Sazani Associates, Cathryn Al Kanaan has been asked to the award ceremony in Brussels, the 7th of December 2010.
Cathryn said, “it is a great honour for Sazani Associates to be recognised by the Council of Europe and to accept this laureate on behalf of ERLAFS. Although we designed and lead ERLAFS, credit must go to our partners and the schools we work with in Wales and Zanzibar. Without their hard and the support of the Zanzibar Ministry of Education and Wales LEA’s this project would not have happened.”
Cathryn, a holder of a Wales Green Hero Award in 2009, for Sazani’s work in International Sustainable Development.
For more information on the prize:
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/nscentre/NS_Prize_en.asp
For more information on the Council of Europe:
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/nscentre/About_NSC/Presentation_en.asp
For more information on ERLAFS:
Please look at our Past Projects
International partners meet in the Rhondda
A conference held recently at the Rhondda Heritage Park was an opportunity for delegates from international partners of the Workers’ Education Association (WEA) and Sazani Associates to review their progress in the teaching of global active citizenship and food sovereignty. The event, coordinated by the WEA and international NGO Sazani Associates, featured talks on the importance of ecologically responsible development and sustainable livelihood strategies and also gave delegates the opportunity to take part in workshops and demonstrations of the teaching toolkits developed over the last year, including instruction on pod casting and radio production. It represented an ideal opportunity for Welsh partners to feedback to their international counterparts, while promoting the principles of global citizenship and shared responsibility.
The meeting, attended by delegates from organizations from across Europe and the Global South, was part of an ongoing project, coordinated in Wales by the WEA and Sazani Associates, to improve curricula in both primary and adult learning and in rural development- giving context to global issues and raising awareness of the importance of rural livelihoods and sustainable development on a global scale.
The two day conference featured activities which aimed to consolidate the projects training toolkit and ‘edukit’, such as pod casting and radio editing as well as instruction on good sustainability practises with an emphasis upon the importance of capital assets in achieving well rounded and sustainable development.
Talks from European delegates brought all of the partner organizations up to date with the project’s achievements while an address from Assembly member Leanne Wood reminded everybody of the context of self sufficiency within which the conference was held. Her talk emphasised the importance of rural livelihoods and local production and cited Cuba’s allotment scheme in the wake of their ‘peak oil’ crisis as an example of sustainable land reform.
Sazani Associates are based in Carmarthen and are actively involved in promoting the sustainable development of rural livelihoods. They are committed to promoting active global citizenship through education as a means to developing awareness of sustainability and environmental responsibility.
Welsh schools link with Zanzibar
An award-winning, Welsh-led education project is helping teachers learn more about ways to help some of the poorest youngsters in the world beat the poverty trap.
A group of south Wales schools established special links with schools across Zanzibar, with more than 80 teachers taking part in the ground-breaking programme that focuses on the rights of people to have access to sustainably-produced food.
At the final conference of the Education for Rural Livelihoods and Food Sovereignty (ERLAFS) project in Aberdare, they each identified how their joint working can continue to help both countries meet the Millennium Development Goals.
“This five-year programme has given teachers from both regions a real insight into the challenges and opportunities of different teaching methods,” said Marilyn James, Education Director of Sazani Associates.
“We have learned much from each other: children in both sets of schools now have a much wider outlook, and our partners in Zanzibar have benefited from new teaching techniques”, she added.
Chair of UNESCO Wales and chief executive of the General Teaching Council Wales, Gary Brace, told the conference at the Dare Valley Centre that the project proved the value of global linking.
“This work can help us achieve Millennium Development Goals such as inclusive education approaches to marginalised groups, thereby providing universal primary education”, he told representatives of 20 south Wales schools and 13 teachers from Zanzibar.
The project team is currently working together to develop methods of continuing the global linking project post-funding, building on the strong links that have been established for further mutual benefits.
The ERLAFS project won a prestigious European World Aware Education Award and triumphed over more than 30 other projects from Afghanistan to Armenia and Nigeria to Pakistan, with Carmarthen-based Sazani Associates chosen as one of three awards laureates by the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe.
For more information on the prize:
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/nscentre/NS_Prize_en.asp
For more information on “The United Nationals Development Programme Millennium Development Goals”:
http://www.beta.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview.html
For more information on the Council of Europe:
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/nscentre/About_NSC/Presentation_en.asp
For more information on ERLAFS:
Please look at our Past Projects
Sazani Associates conducts research and development projects worldwide
Below we have listed a selection of current and past research projects and development initiatives.
For more information on any of these projects or our other work, please contact us directly at info@sazaniassociates.org.uk
UK-based initiatives
- for Rural Livelihoods’ and Food Sovereignty (ERLAFS)
We are currently coordinating this school-links and curriculum development project between Wales and Zanzibar, working with over thirty schools across West Wales and the Valleys and Zanzibar. Funding for this initiative comes from DFID, GTCW and LEAs. - Global Learners as Educators in Wales (GLEW)
A major DFID-funded project that we are co-ordinating to increase the capacity and capability of teachers and adult educators in Wales. The overall aim is to develop a ‘Globally Minded Approach’ to education. Working in partnership with WEA South Wales and partners in Italy, France, Tanzania, Senegal, Ecuador and Peru through Europe Aid funding secured through a sister project Rural Education for Food Security and Active Global Citizenship. - Rural Livelihoods Activity Pack
Sazani Associates have developing an activity pack for community events to raise awareness of the importance of sustainable rural livelihoods, funded by the Pembrokeshire Agricultural Society. - Chartered Institute of Housing – Accredited Tenant Empowerment Agents (Wales Assembly Government)
In this capacity our associates provide support to social housing residents to improve their quality of life. Download report >>
UK research papers
- ‘Attitudes towards Migrant Workers in mid Ulster, Northern Ireland’ 2006/07. Download paper >>
- ‘Community Perceptions of Milford Haven Port Authority, Wales’ 2007/08. Download paper >>
- ‘UNESCO(UK) School Linking Taskforce’ – research project to assess the value of school links on achieving Education for All (EFA)
EU and overseas projects
- Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainably Aware (CASA)(2011) Download leaflet >>
- MEES Series of Geography texts books, Zanzibar (2008)
Commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Zanzibar, the production of educational material for Zanzibar secondary school curriculum funded by UNFPA. Textbook covers: Download Forms 1 & 2 >>, Download Forms 3 & 4 >> - Community & Indigenous Peoples Plan (SIA), Cameroon (2007)
Commissioned by the World Bank, Social Impact Assessment of AES Kribi Power Project on the Bakola Forest People. Download report >> - Pro-poor Tourism Programme, Zanzibar, Tanzania, (2006-07)
Technical advisors supporting the capacity building and technical capability of the local partners involved in this project. - Education for Rural People (ERP), International (2004-2006)
Provision of technical support to FAO/UNESCO Education for Rural People Flagship Wales Italy and Tanzania. - Social Forestry & Community Engagement Programme Belize (2005)
Technical support – providing baseline data for engaging young people in community and social forestry. - FAO and UNESCO Education for Rural People Flagship. (2004-05)
Assessment of Education in Zanzibar for Rural People. Download report >> - The Education for Rural Livelihoods and Food Sovereignty (ERLAFS) project, has been featured in the UNESCO 2009 publication ‘Second Collection of Good Practices: Education for Sustainable Development’. ERLAFS aims to develop shared learning opportunities between secondary and primary school in Wales and Zanzibar and to foster the professional development of teachers in support of poverty reduction. The project has been included as a model of good practice in Education for Sustainable Development for its focus on capacity building both inside and outside the classroom. To download an electronic version of the publication, please click http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001812/181270E.pdf